Optical contrast and refractive index of natural van der Waals heterostructure nanosheets of franckeite

Beilstein J Nanotechnol. 2017 Nov 8:8:2357-2362. doi: 10.3762/bjnano.8.235. eCollection 2017.

Abstract

We study mechanically exfoliated nanosheets of franckeite by quantitative optical microscopy. The analysis of transmission-mode and epi-illumination-mode optical microscopy images provides a rapid method to estimate the thickness of the exfoliated flakes at first glance. A quantitative analysis of the optical contrast spectra by means of micro-reflectance allows one to determine the refractive index of franckeite over a broad range of the visible spectrum through a fit of the acquired spectra to a model based on the Fresnel law.

Keywords: complex refractive index; franckeite; optical contrast; optical identification; van der Waals heterostructure.